Melissa Arnette Elliott (born July 1, 1971), better known as Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott,[1] is an American rapper, singer, dancer and record producer. Elliott embarked on her music career with all-female
R&B group
Sista in the early-mid 1990s and later became a member of the
Swing Mob collective along with childhood friend and longtime collaborator
Timbaland, with whom she worked on projects for
Aaliyah,
702,
Total, and
SWV. Following several collaborations and guest appearances, she launched her solo career in 1997 with her debut album Supa Dupa Fly, which spawned the top 20 single "
Sock It 2 Me". The album debuted at number three on the
Billboard 200, the highest-charting debut for a female rapper at the time.[2]

Early life

Melissa Arnette Elliott[7] was born on July 1, 1971,[8] at
Portsmouth Naval Hospital in
Portsmouth,
Virginia.[9][10] She is the only child of mother Patricia Elliott, a power-company dispatcher, and father Ronnie, a
U.S. Marine no longer on active duty working as a Shipyard welder.[7][11][12] Elliott grew up in an active church choir family, and singing was a normal part of her youth. At the age of four in 1975, she wanted to be a performer, and, as biographer Veronica A. Davis writes, she "would sing and perform for her family". In later years, she feared no one would take her seriously, because she was always the
class clown.[13] While her father was an active Marine, the family lived in
Jacksonville,
North Carolina, in a manufactured home community.[13][10] Elliott blossomed during this part of her life. She enjoyed school for the friendships she formed though she had little interest in school work. She would later get well above average marks on intelligence tests,[13] and she was advanced two years ahead of her former class.[13] Her move in grades caused isolation, and she purposely failed, eventually returning to her previous class.[13] When her father returned from the Marines, they moved back to Virginia, where they lived in extreme poverty.[11]

Life in Virginia saw many hardships. Elliott tells of
domestic abuse by her father.[14] She refused to stay over at friends' homes out of fear that, on her return home, she would find her mother dead.[14] When Elliott was eight, she was
molested by a cousin. In one violent incident, Ronnie Elliott dislocated his wife's shoulders and, during another, Elliott herself was threatened with a gun.[14] At fourteen, Elliott's mother decided to end the situation; she fled with her daughter under the guise of taking a joyride on a local bus. In reality, the pair had found refuge at a family member's home where their possessions were stored in a loaded
U-Haul truck.[11] Elliott tells that she feared her father would kill them both for leaving.[13]

She later stated, "When we left, my mother realized how strong she was on her own, and it made me strong. It took her leaving to realize."[11][13]

Career

1989–95: Sista and career beginnings

In the late 1980s, Elliott formed an all female
R&B group, called Fayze (later renamed Sista),[7] with friends La'Shawn Shellman, Chonita Coleman, and Radiah Scott. She recruited her neighborhood friend
Timothy Mosley (Timbaland) as the group's
producer and began making demo tracks, among them included the promo "First Move".[15] In 1991, Fayze caught the attention of
Jodeci member and producer
DeVante Swing[7] by performing Jodeci songs
a cappella for him backstage after one of his group's concerts. In short order, Fayze moved to New York City and signed to
Elektra Records through DeVante's
Swing Mob imprint, also renaming the group Sista. Sista debut song was titled "Brand New" released in 1993[16] Elliott took Mosley—whom DeVante re-christened Timbaland—and their friend
Melvin "Magoo" Barcliff along with her.

All 20-plus members of the Swing Mob—among them future stars such as
Ginuwine,
Playa, and
Tweet[17]—lived in a single two-story house in New York and were often at work on material both for Jodeci and their own projects.[12] While Elliott wrote and rapped on
Raven-Symoné's 1993 debut single, "
That's What Little Girls Are Made Of",[1] she also contributed, credited and uncredited, to the Jodeci albums Diary of a Mad Band (1993) and The Show, the After Party, the Hotel (1995). Timbaland and DeVante jointly produced a Sista album, entitled 4 All the Sistas Around da World (1994). Elliott met
R&B artist
Mary J. Blige while Blige was in sessions for her second album My Life. Though videos were released for the original and remix versions of the single "Brand New", the album was shelved and never released.[15] One of the group's tracks, "It's Alright" featuring
Craig Mack, did however make the cut on the
soundtrack of the 1995 motion picture Dangerous Minds. But by the end of 1995, Swing Mob had folded and many of its members dispersed; Elliott, Timbaland, Magoo, Ginuwine, and Playa remained together and collaborated on each other's records for the rest of the decade as the musical collective The Superfriends.[18][19][20]

Also, that year Elliott appeared on the Men of Vizion's remix of "Do Thangz" which was produced by
Rodney Jerkins (coincidentally the producer of the original version of "
The Things That You Do"). She instead signed a deal with
East West Records, a division of
Elektra Entertainment Group at that time, in 1996 to create her own imprint,
The Goldmind Inc., for which she would record as a solo artist.[17] Timbaland was again recruited as her production partner, a role he would hold on most of Elliott's solo releases. Missy also appeared in
LSG's song "All the Time" with
Gerald Levert,
Keith Sweat,
Johnny Gill,
Faith Evans, and
Coko in 1997 on Levert Sweat Gill classic album. The same year, she rapped in "Keys To My House" with old friends group
LeVert. In the center of a busy period making guest appearances and writing for other artists, Elliott's debut album, Supa Dupa Fly, was released in mid-1997; the success of its lead single "
The Rain" led the album to be certified platinum.[16]

The success was also a result of the music videos of her single releases which had been directed by
Harold "Hype" Williams, who created many groundbreaking hip hop, or arguably more specifically Afrofuturistic, videos at the time. The album was also nominated for Best Rap Album at the
1998 Grammy Awards, but lost to
Puff Daddy's No Way Out. The year also saw Elliott perform live at the
MTV Video Music Awards show on a remix to
Lil' Kim's "Ladies Night" with fellow rappers
Da Brat,
Angie Martinez and
TLC-rapper
Left Eye. In 1998, Elliott continued her successful career in the background as a producer and writer on
Total's single "Trippin'", as well as working with several others in the hip-hop and
R&B communities. Elliott co-wrote and co-produced two tracks on
Whitney Houston's 1998 album My Love Is Your Love, providing vocal cameos for "In My Business" and "Oh Yes". The same year, Elliott also produced and made a guest appearance on
Spice GirlMelanie Brown's debut solo single, "I Want You Back", which topped the
UK Singles Chart.

1999–2001: Da Real World and Miss E… So Addictive

Although a much darker album than her debut, Elliott's second album was just as successful as the first,[21] selling 1.5 million copies and 3 million copies worldwide. She remarked, "I can't even explain the pressure. The last album took me a week to record. This one took almost two months…I couldn't rush it the second time because people expect more."[21]Da Real World (1999) included the singles "
All n My Grill", a collaboration with
Nicole Wray and
Big Boi (from
OutKast), a remix to "
Hot Boyz" and "
She's a Bitch". Also in 1999, Elliott was featured, alongside Da Brat, on the official remix to a Mariah Carey single "
Heartbreaker".

Missy Elliott next released Miss E... So Addictive in 2001. The album spawned the massive pop and urban hits "
One Minute Man", featuring
Ludacris and
Trina, and "
Get Ur Freak On", as well as the international
club hit "
4 My People" and the less commercially successful single "
Take Away". The double music video for "Take Away/4 My People" was released in the fall of 2001, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the death of Elliott's friend Aaliyah in August. The "Take Away" video contained images of and words about Aaliyah, and the slow ballad acted as a tribute to her memory. The remainder of the video was the more upbeat "4 My People", contained scenes of people dancing happily in front of American flags and Elliott dressed in red, white and blue. Though "Take Away" was not a success on radio, "4 My People" went on to become an American and European
club hit due to a popular remix by
house music duo
Basement Jaxx in 2002.

2002–04: Under Construction and This Is Not a Test!

For her next outing, Elliott and Timbaland focused on an old school sound, utilizing many old school rap and funk samples, such as
Run–D.M.C.'s "Peter Piper" and
Frankie Smith's "Double Dutch Bus." Elliott's fourth album, 2002's Under Construction (see
2002 in music) is known as the best selling female rap album with 2.1 million copies sold in the United States.[23] In 2002, Elliott won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance for "Get Ur Freak On".[1] In 2003, Under Construction received Grammy nominations for
Best Rap Album and
Album of the Year.[24]The New York Times designated Under Construction "this year's best hip-hop album."[25] Elliott released two singles off of
Under Construction. The lead single, "
Work It" reached #2 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart and won the "Video of the Year" award at
MTV's Video Music Awards. The second single, "
Gossip Folks" featuring
Ludacris, became a Top 10 hit on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, was one of the most-played music videos on
MTV,
MTV2,
MTV Jams, and
BET in 2003 and was embraced by the dance community, as well as the mainstream, due to a
Fatboy Slim remix.[26] A third single was never released, though a video was shot for "
Back In The Day" featuring
Jay-Z[27] and Elliott was set to release the sexual-themed, "P***ycat", as the album's final single with a remixed version featuring
Janet Jackson. Although not released as single and with no video, "Pussycat" peaked at number 77 on the
Billboard Hot 100.

In between albums, Elliott produced the "American Dream Remix" (featuring Tweet's additional vocals) of
Madonna's single "American Life," was featured rapper on Timbaland & Magoo's return single, "
Cop That Shit", and produced "Fighting Temptation" (featuring herself, Beyoncé,
Free and
MC Lyte) for the soundtrack to the
Cuba Gooding Jr. and
Beyoncé Knowles movie of the same name. The track reached #1 in Japan but failed to chart in the U.S. Hot 100. Elliott was also featured on
Wyclef Jean's "
Party to Damascus" and
Ghostface Killah's "
Tush" singles, the latter of which became a minor 2004 dance hit, and had a pivotal role in the film Honey.
Gap approached Elliott later in the year to co-star in a commercial with Madonna, which received much media attention.[28] Elliott furthered her relationship with Madonna by performing the controversial 2003
MTV Video Music Awards show opening alongside Madonna,
Britney Spears and
Christina Aguilera.

A year after Elliott's most successful album to date was released, Elliott felt pressured by her label to release another album, hoping to capitalize on her recent success.[29] Elliott's singles, "
Pass That Dutch" and "
I'm Really Hot", from her fifth album, This Is Not a Test! (released November 2003), both rose the urban charts. However, both were not as successful at pop radio in comparison to many of her previous efforts. This Is Not A Test sold 690,000 copies in the United States[29] and has been
certified Platinum by the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Elliott has since stated "This Is Not A Test! came out extremely too quickly for me. I didn't want it to come out when it did."[30] In 2004, Elliott was featured on
Ciara's hit single "
1, 2 Step", with her verse interpolating
Teena Marie's single, "Square Biz". Elliott premiered her own reality show on the
UPN Network, The Road to Stardom with Missy Elliott in 2005, though it was not renewed for a second season.

2005–06: The Cookbook and Respect M.E.

Elliott wanted to "give people the unexpected" by utilizing producers other than Timbaland and a "more to the center" sound not as far left as her other music.[30] Her sixth solo album, The Cookbook was released in July 2005, debuted at number two on the U.S. charts and was certified
gold by the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), selling 645,000 copies in the United States. Elliott's work during The Cookbook era was heavily recognized. Elliott received 5
Grammy nominations in 2005, including one for Best Rap Album for The Cookbook. The album's first single, "Lose Control," won a Grammy for Best Short Form Video and was nominated for Best Rap Song. "Lose Control" also garnered Elliott six 2005 MTV VMA award nominations (winning Best Dance Video and Best Hip-Hop Video). Elliott won Best Female Hip Hop Artist at the 2005
American Music Awards, and was nominated for Best International Female Artist at the
2006 BRIT Awards.

"
Lose Control" featuring
Ciara and
Fatman Scoop, became a Top 5 hit in the early summer (peaking at number three on the BillboardHot 100). The second single, Teary Eyed, did not chart, although the video charted on MTV's TRL for a few weeks, and
BET's 106 & Park for a few days. The third single, "
We Run This", was released with heavy airplay on
VH1,
MTV, and BET. It served as the lead single for the soundtrack to the gymnastics-themed film Stick It. The song was also nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Rap Solo Performance category in 2006. Respect M.E., Elliott's first greatest hits album, was released outside the United States and Canada on September 4, 2006, only in South Africa, Australia, Europe, Japan, and Brazil. The collection became her second top ten album in the UK and her highest charting album to date, peaking at number seven there.

2007–14: Production work

Elliott was an honoree of the 2007 VH1 Hip Hop Honors.[31] In honor of her career, many artists performed some of her biggest hits. Timbaland and
Tweet performed "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)",
Eve and
Keyshia Cole performed "
Hot Boyz" and "Work It",
Fatman Scoop and
Ciara performed "Lose Control", and
Nelly Furtado performed "Get Ur Freak On (The Remix)."[32] Since 2007, Elliott's seventh
studio album has had several different forms with extensive delays. In 2007, she worked with Timbaland,
Swizz Beatz,
Danja,
T-Pain and
DJ Toomp and planned to release an album at the beginning of 2008.[33] In January 2008, "
Ching-a-Ling" was released as the lead single for the Step Up 2: The Streets soundtrack, which also featured "
Shake Your Pom Pom" produced by Timbaland. Elliott released the song "
Best, Best" in the same year[34] and renamed the albums previous title FANomenal to its current tentative title Block Party.[35] She later decided against Block Party and four years later, in 2012, Elliott released two Timbaland-produced singles ("
9th Inning" and "
Triple Threat") exclusively to iTunes.[36] Though the songs managed to chart on
Billboard Hot Digital Songs,[37] in an interview with Yahoo's The Yo Show, Missy talked about her hiatus from making records: "Your brain needs time to refresh! Things happen in your life where you can then write something else instead of the same three topics. Like, how many times we gonna talk about the club? I gotta feel like what I'm giving the fans is 100 percent and that it's game-changing. I don't just throw out microwave records."[38]

Throughout 2013, Missy Elliott was featured on
Eve's album cut "Wanna Be,"[40] as well as international artists' singles,
Little Mix's "
How Ya Doin'?" and "
NiLiria" with K-pop musician
G-Dragon, which was named by
Complex magazine as one of the "50 Best Songs of 2013".[41] Elliott also contributed to her protégée
Sharaya J's two releases, "Banji" and "Smash Up The Place/Snatch Yo Wigs". In December 2013, Elliott received a
Grammy nomination with
Fantasia and
Kelly Rowland for their song "
Without Me".[42] As early as July 2013, Missy Elliott and Timbaland held recording sessions for
Kat Dahlia's debut, My Garden (2015).[43] In August 2013, R&B singer
Faith Evans revealed that Missy Elliott would be featured on her sixth studio album, tentatively titled Incomparable.[44] In March 2014, Evans revealed one of the tracks was named "
I Deserve It", featuring Missy and her protégée
Sharaya J, in which Evans cited it as a "banger" and "feel good" record.[45] Evans also revealed that in total Elliott contributed three tracks to her album.[45] On July 7, 2014, fellow R&B singer
Monica confirmed that Elliott would be a feature on her upcoming eighth studio album.[46] On July 29, 2014, a snippet of a Missy Elliott–produced song, nicknamed "I Love Him", premiered on Monica's official
Instagram account.[47]

2015–present

In 2015, Missy Elliott performed at the
Super Bowl XLIX halftime show with
Katy Perry. Elliott performed a medley of "Get Ur Freak On", "Work It", and "Lose Control".[48] The performance was well-received,[49][50] and boosted digital sales of Elliott's work that week, with a twenty-five-fold increase in album sales (to 2,000 units) and a ten-fold increase in sales of the three songs she performed (to 71,000 units) compared to the week before. It also became the most watched Super Bowl halftime show in NFL history, receiving 118.5 million viewers in the United States.[51] On February 3, 2015, it was confirmed that Elliott would be a feature on the upcoming remix to
Diplo and
Skrillex's "
Take Ü There".[52] On February 11, Elliott stated that she was still in the process of recording her seventh studio album, Block Party, with Timbaland.[53] On April 2, 2015,
Pharrell Williams confirmed that he was working on Elliott's album during an episode of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.[54] On November 12, 2015, "
WTF (Where They From)" and its music video were simultaneously released to digital outlets.[55] By November 19, the song and its video had been streamed 6.1 million times in the US alone, with an additional count of 16 million views per YouTube viewing.[56]

On February 7, 2016, the day of the
fiftiethSuper Bowl, Missy Elliott released a promotional single, "Pep Rally".[57] Later that month, Elliott reunited with former protégée
Tweet and frequent collaborator Timbaland on the cut "Somebody Else Will" taken from the former's third studio album, Charlene.[58] By March 15, 2016, First Lady
Michelle Obama proclaimed that she had assembled a collaborative track featuring vocals from Missy Elliott,
Kelly Clarkson,
Janelle Monáe and
Zendaya, alongside production credit from pop songwriter
Diane Warren and Elliott, titled "This Is for My Girls".[59] The
iTunes-exclusive record will be used to both coincide with Ms. Obama's
SXSW speech and to promote her third-world educational initiative
Let Girls Learn.[59]

Following a surprise appearance with
TLC on the 2016 televised special Taraji's White Hot Holidays,[60] Elliott announced plans to release a documentary chronicling her impact on the production scene in both audio and video.[61] The midnight of January 27, 2017, saw the full-length release to a new Elliott single titled "
I'm Better", featuring production and vocal assistance from recurring sideman
Lamb and shared directing credit by Elliott and longtime colleague
Dave Meyers.[62]

In July 2018, Missy Elliott teased fans by appearing on a snippet nicknamed "ID" by
Skrillex, a release date for the single has yet to be announced.[63] One month later, Elliott appeared on the
Ariana Grande number "Borderline", taken from the singer's fourth studio album Sweetener (2018).

Personal life

Elliott has said that she wants to start a family, but she is afraid of giving birth.[64] She stated, "I don't know if I can take that kind of pain [of
labor]. Maybe in the year 2020 you could just pop a baby out and it'd be fine. But right now I'd rather just
adopt."[64] Elliott and her father occasionally talk, but the rapper says she has not forgiven him for the domestic violence she witnessed towards her mother.[11][13]

In June 2011, Elliott told People magazine that her absence from the music industry was due to a
hyperthyroidism disorder known as
Graves' disease.[65] She was diagnosed after she nearly crashed a car from having severe leg spasms while driving.[65] She experienced severe symptoms from the condition, and she could not even hold a pen up to write songs.[65] After treatment, her symptoms stabilized,[65] and she has announced that she would like to get back to her career.[66]

Legacy

Commercially, Missy Elliott led female hip hop album sales during the late 1990s and early 2000s with 7 million copies sold in the United States in the time span, which also included
Lauryn Hill (7 million),
Lil' Kim (4 million), and
Eve (4 million).[67] Elliott's experimental concepts in her music videos changed the landscape of what a hip-hop video had as themes at the time.[68] Her catalogue of songs have included themes of
feminism,
gender equality,
body positivity and
sex positivity since the beginning of her career, being one of the first to center on these topics among hip-hop and R&B performers.[69]The Observer's Ted Kessler stated that, with her studio albums, she "has revolutionised the sound of R&B and hip-hop."
Destiny's Child, Eve and
Macy Gray have credited her for "clearing a path" in the American music industry towards "their own pop pre-eminence."[70] An article from Vibe credits Elliott's debut Supa Dupa Fly as "changing the rap game for women," noting the rapper's "refusal to be pigeonholed" with her image.[71]

Other ventures

Biographical film

In 2005, it was announced[by whom?] that there are plans to make a biographical film about the life story of Elliott and is to be shown in theaters.[72] Producers include
Robert De Niro and
Jane Rosenthal, and the film is being written and directed by Diane Houston. In mid-June 2007, Elliott said she was still working on the script with Diane Houston in order "to come up with the right stuff 'cause I don't want it to be watered down. I want it to be raw and uncut the way my life was"[73] Initially, it seemed Timbaland wouldn't be a part of the movie. When Missy asked him, he refused, citing he felt it dramatized his character; "the movie is about her life, her story, that goes deeper than putting me into the movie".[74] However, Timbaland has since stated that he would reconsider if she could get others, including
Ginuwine and
Magoo to sign on.

Philanthropy

In 2002, Elliott wrote a letter on behalf of
PETA to the mayor of her hometown Portsmouth, Virginia, asking that all shelter animals be
neutered/spayed before being adopted.[75] For the
reality TV show The Road to Stardom, there was a contest for viewers to create a public service ad for the Break the Cycle fund.

In 2004, she joined forces with
MAC Cosmetics to promote their "Viva Glam" campaign. In addition to the ad campaign, Elliott promoted the MAC Viva Glam V lipstick from which 100% of the sale goes to the MAC
AIDS Fund.

In 2007, Elliott appeared on an
ABC's Extreme Makeover and awarded four scholarships for a weight loss program to four underprivileged teens.